Wuthering Heights (film)

• Release Date: 1939
• Director(s): William Wyler
• Writer(s): Ben Hecht; Charles MacArthur
• Principal Actors and Roles: David Niven (Edgar Linton); Merle Oberon (Catherine Earnshaw Linton); Laurence Olivier (Heathcliff); Leo G. Carroll (Joseph); Geraldine Fitzgerald (Isabella Linton); Miles Mander (Mr. Lockwood); Flora Robson (Ellen Dean)
• Book / Story Film Based On: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights is an American romance film set in mid-nineteenth century Yorkshire at Wuthering Heights, an old house located on English moors, and tells the unfortunate love story of Heathcliff and Cathy, who are driven apart by circumstance. The film is based on Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel, Wuthering Heights. However, the film version only includes about half of the novel’s thirty-four chapters, and cuts out the characters of Heathcliff and Cathy’s respective children entirely.

Film producer Walter Wagner was the original owner of the film rights to Wuthering Heights. After deciding to abandon his project, Wagner put the rights to the film and the screenplay up for sale. Ultimately, it was Samuel Goldwyn who won the bidding war. Goldwyn originally intended the lead role of Cathy Earnshaw to be played by Merle Oberon, an actress under contract with Goldwyn. Laurence Olivier was cast in the role of Heathcliff, sparking his lover and future wife, actress Vivien Leigh, to begin lobbying for the role of Cathy instead of Oberon. However, executives did not think it wise to cast Leigh in an American film, as she was largely unknown in the United States at the time. As a consolation, producers offered Leigh the supporting role of Isabella Linton, but she turned it down. Later that year, Leigh was cast in Gone With the Wind for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

Tensions between the lead actors, Olivier and Oberon, were high on set, with one reported interaction involving Olivier accidentally spitting in Oberon’s face during a romantic scene. Oberon became very upset, eventually storming off set and refusing to return without an apology from Olivier. The film’s director, William Wyler, demanded that Olivier apologize, to which Olivier reacted extremely poorly. In addition, the relationship between Olivier and Wyler was strained due to Wyler’s directing style, which was often tightlipped. Wyler made Olivier shoot one scene seventy-two times, without offering any explicit direction other than "again!"

Plot

One night, a traveler named Lockwood comes calling at Wuthering Heights during a snowstorm where Heathcliff, the house’s master, reluctantly agrees to let Lockwood wait out the storm. Later that night, Lockwood is awoken by the sound of a window shutter banging open, but just before he has a chance to close it, he feels a freezing hand on his wrist and sees the shape of a woman outside calling out for Heathcliff, saying her name is Cathy.

When Lockwood informs Heathcliff of what he has seen, Heathcliff becomes furious and banishes Lockwood from the room. Heathcliff then runs out into the storm, calling out for Cathy. Ellen, Heathcliff’s housekeeper, tells Lockwood that he has just seen the ghost of Cathy Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s deceased great love and Ellen assures Lockwood that he will believe in ghosts once she tells him Cathy and Heathcliff’s tale.

The film continues as a prolonged flashback, beginning forty years previously as a young, orphaned Heathcliff is taken in by Mr. Earnshaw who has two children, Cathy and Hindley. Cathy and Heathcliff become close, and ten years later, Cathy and Heathcliff are in love and meeting secretly at Peniston Crag. One night, Heathcliff and Cathy hear music coming from a party at the wealthy Linton residence and decide to sneak over the wall, but soon are discovered by the Lintons’ dogs, which attack and injury Cathy. The Lintons take care of Cathy, and Heathcliff leaves, upset.

Months later, Cathy has been living at the Lintons during her recovery, and has won the heart of Edgar Linton, who proposes to her. After overhearing Cathy telling Ellen that she would be demeaning herself if she married Heathcliff, he leaves. Cathy tries to run after him, but is caught in a storm, and after returning Cathy and Edgar soon marry.

Several years later, Heathcliff returns as a wealthy man, obtaining his wealth in an attempt to impress and hurt Cathy, buys Wuthering Heights from Hindley, and marries Edgar Linton’s sister, Isabella. Cathy becomes hurt and jealous, but soon falls deathly ill. Heathcliff goes to visit Cathy on her deathbed, and she dies in his arms.

The flashback ends as Dr. Kenneth, Heathcliff’s doctor, interrupts Ellen and Lockwood, saying that he saw Heathcliff with his arms around a woman out in the storm, and that Heathcliff was thrown from a horse. Upon inspection, the woman had vanished and only Heathcliff’s footprints were present. Dr. Kenneth informs them that Heathcliff is dead, and Ellen says that Heathcliff is with Cathy, and the two can begin to live. The final shot shows the ghosts of Cathy and Heathcliff on Peniston Crag, ascending into Heaven.

Significance

Director Wyler vehemently opposed the inclusion of the final scene of Heathcliff and Cathy’s ghosts, and feuded with Goldwyn over this issue. However, Goldwyn insisted that the scene be included, and threatened to hire another director to shoot the scene if Wyler continued to refuse and ultimately, Goldwyn got his way. However, the scene was filmed after the principle shooting had wrapped, and because both Oberon and Olivier had already signed on to new projects and were unavailable to appear in the scene, body doubles were used.

As a result of the Hays Code, which was a set of moral guidelines any films released by major studios had to follow until 1968, the relationship of Heathcliff and Cathy in the film is portrayed as platonic (despite the two sharing a kiss). In the novel, however, their relationship is known to be sexual. Goldwyn also changed the time in which the story was set, from the novel’s setting of the late eighteenth century, to the mid-nineteenth century. Goldwyn supposedly made this change because he preferred the look of fashions from the Civil War era.

Despite not being a huge box office success, the film was critically acclaimed, and was nominated for a total of eight Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. However, Wuthering Heights only took away one Oscar, awarded to Gregg Toland for best cinematography. For this film, Toland was given first use of the Mitchell Camera Corporation’s new Mitchell BNC camera, which would go on to be the studio’s standard camera. In 2007, the Library of Congress added Wuthering Heights to the United States National Film Registry, citing its cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance.

Awards and nominations

Won

• Academy Award (1939) Best Cinematography (Black-and-White): Gregg Toland

Nominated

• Academy Award (1939) Best Picture
• Academy Award (1939) Best Director: William Wyler
• Academy Award (1939) Best Actor: Laurence Olivier
• Academy Award (1939) Best Supporting Actress: Geraldine Fitzgerald
• Academy Award (1939) Best Screenplay (Adapted): Ben Hecht, Charles MacArthur
• Academy Award (1939) Best Score (Original): Alfred Newman
• Academy Award (1939) Best Art Direction

Bibliography

Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York: Vintage, 2009. Print.

Dirks, Tim. "Wuthering Heights (1939)." AMC Filmsite. American Movie Classics Company, 2015. Web. 10 July 2015. <http://www.filmsite.org/wuth.html>.

Herman, Jan. A Talent For Trouble: The Life of Hollywood’s Most Acclaimed Director, William Wyler. New York: Da Capo, 1997. Print.

Shachar, Hila. Cultural Afterlives and Screen Adaptations of Classic Literature: Wuthering Heights and Company. New York: Palgrave, 2012. Print.

"Wuthering Heights (1939)." Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Turner Entertainment Networks, 2015. Web. 10 July 2015. <http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/96324/Wuthering-Heights/full-synopsis.html>.